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The ten years since Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick wroteZombielandhave been pretty good to the Hollywood scribes.
So, its been a decade.
For different reasons, partly script but mostly scheduling, it just didnt get going.
We had to kind of redesign a story that would take into account that shed become a young woman.
Then ultimately we came back for a couple of years to rewrite what they had done.
You add it all up and it was ten years later.
It was definitely one of those exercises in delayed gratification.
We had to all kind of relax and hope that someday it would get there, and it did.
Now were here and were going to pretend like it never happened!
Paul Wernick: We didnt think it would ever come together.
All the actors are so sought after.
With Emma and Woody and Jesse and Abby, the stars needed to align.
Hollywoods a crazy place, and we just thought we were one and done.
Thatll be up to the audience pendingZombieland 2s success.
Getting people for the firstDeadpoolwas super difficult.
We got a lot of nos, just like we got a lot of nos on the firstZombieland.
Ultimately, we ended up with Bill Murray, but we got a lot of nos getting to him.
Getting Bill on the first one was like, Oh my God.
I cant believe it!
Hes not going to show up.
Is he gonna show up?
How do we get him?
Do we go on plane and actually just grab him and put him onto a plane?
And this one, it was like one call.
If youve succeeded once, theres more scrutiny, because suddenly the project is a tent pole, right?
It means a lot to the studio.
They really did let us go largely make the movie we wanted to make.
I mean, you get studio notes.
You always get studio notes, but they were helpful and they were not obtrusive.
We really werent meddled with that much.
We have stuff like monster trucks and people falling off towers and the leaning tower of Pisa falling over.
Its a reasonably sized movie thats not about necessarily saving the world.
In the wrong hands that character would have been, Oh, God.
Shes super the worst!
But shes so delightfully bad.
Shes endearing and, you know, dumb like a fox.
I think it was probably time again.
Paul, you always call it wish fulfillment.
We always think, Oh, my God.
How terrible this would be!
There is some wish fulfillment to being able to have no consequences.
Sure, there are zombies out there, and yeah, they can kill you.
But theres also a lot of fun.
it’s possible for you to go stay at the White House.
Reese: Paul wants to be off the grid.
This is his escape.
Wernick:Its the truth!
Theres some benefits to lawlessness out there, Jordan.
Perversely, that makes Z-Land feel like a safe place to go back to.Wernick: Youre so right.
If we could only go back to 2009 and watch the world end!
